On the Brink of Oblivion
by xayne
Summary: [AU] An unlikely pair of soldiers collect their thoughts before the final battle.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters in the HPverse. I don't see why JKR can't break me off with one of the minor ones, but I guess that's her business. Surely no one would miss Justin Finch-Fletchley…**

"So."

Justin Finch-Fletchley looked up in surprise. Across the narrow trench another boy sat, staring back at him just as intently. The firelight flickered for a second, provoked by a favonian gust, and momentarily cast the others' features into sharp relief. The eyes continued to stare at him from behind an unreadable mask.

"So," Justin concurred. It was the first words they had spoken in several long hours. Justin prodded a log with his boot, sending a few embers spiraling upward, borne on the wings of heat and smoke.

"What are you in for?"

Justin chuckled in spite of himself, the way one laughs when they fall down a stairwell. The comment was something not unlike a joke; a snippet of the resentful parlance passed around by the soldiers. War was not hell so much as it was prison; they felt more like inmates than warriors. "What are you in for?" echoed "Who'd you kill to land in this hellhole?" as well as "Did you have the same judge I did?". Nor was there much doubt as to their sentence as the Final Battle loomed; there was no possibility of parole. No reducing one's sentence for good behavior. The noose hung over them all.

Justin had an answer saved up for this occasion, a clever turn of phrase about his arresting officer that would bring a smile to the lips of his comrades. After sitting for eight hours in a yonic slice in Mother Earth, the words of that and all other jokes eluded him. In this dire moment, he resorted to the truth. "Ginny Weasley."

"Weasley?" the voice answered.

Justin did not have to look at him to see the sneer.

"You're trying to nail Weasley? Don't you know that she's up Scarhead's ass?"

"No, I'm afraid it isn't that simple," Justin answered quietly, his soft voice echoing off of the nearby wall. "I had to ask myself what I was doing in this hole, with you. Why I was in the fight at all. I was down at Eton, you know. But I chose to go to Hogwarts. Even so, I had options. I could have sworn the school off after being attacked in our second year. I could have gone home and preserved a normal, Muggle life." Justin glanced up at his one-boy audience, waiting for comment. But there was none – one generally is not too quick to cut off their last conversation on Earth, no matter what one might think of Muggles. "But I chose the hardscrabble life of a wizard of medium ability. I chose to stay. And then, our fifth year came around, and we knew He was back. Hermione Granger came to me, and talked to me about a defense group. It made sense, at the time. I knew that our Defense knowledge was pretty weak – we never did have the best, most consistent teachers in that class, and Umbridge was just the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. So I agreed. I won't lie about it; seems silly now… but I joined that group because I was scared, mate. I wanted to be able to take care of myself, sure, but only if the situation arose. So, I went to the first meeting, and we picked a name for ourselves.

"And then… and then Ginny condemned me to death on this battlefield. She recommended we call ourselves Dumbledore's Army. Everybody agreed; it was fun, and it was the Ministry's greatest fear at the time. There's magic in names, I'm here to tell you. Power, the kind that one will never get with a wand. I went into that meeting a scared child looking for assurance, but I left as the member of an _army_. At that one moment, when that little Gryffindor opened her mouth, our whole focus changed. I did not see in for several years, of course, but it was there that I started fighting. I donned the cape of the hero, and I haven't dropped it since, and I won't drop until I fall beside it on the battlefield in front of us."

Justin lapsed into silence. He pulled off his protective helmet and tossed it on the ground, running his hands through his thick hair. They said that the helmets were enchanted to deflect malevolent spells, but he did not buy it. He knew that it was there as a constant reminder – as if they could forget – that the war was raging around them at every moment. Eight hours had passed in brooding silence, but the war had not yet reached its morbid conclusion, and no one would let them forget it, not even their own leaders. His silence expired. In another second he was on his feet, staring down his comrade. "But you," he hissed, taken with his rage. "Ten thousand generations of pure-wizards' blood running in your veins, stacks of galleons sitting in the bank, and a giant manor light years away from here… what are you doing here? It's a wonder you're at the battle at all. Further, I can't imagine what you're doing in my trench, instead of across the battlefield with your father and his master. What, in the bloody name of this awful war, are you doing in my trench, Draco Malfoy?" He stared, he seethed; he would not be placated.

"Sit down," Draco growled. "And put your helmet back on, before you kick things off any earlier than absolutely necessary."

Justin took in another hot breath, and nearly choked on the smoke from the fire. Scowling murderously, he sat back down on the bleeding earth, but did not reclaim his helmet.

"I suppose," Draco laughed, "That you would scorn me if I said that I was here on account of Hermione Granger?"

Justin's rage eroded in surprise. "The rumors are true then… you've fallen for a Muggle-born!"

Draco spat in disgust. "I think I have more control than _that_," he hissed. "Even if I could love a filthy mudblood, I certainly have better taste than to swoon for Granger."

Justin did not understand, and his face must have shown it.

Draco tossed a fistful of dirt into the flames and began. "You were there when the Deatheaters stormed Hogwarts. They gave us our choice; we could fight the onslaught, or we could take shelter in the castle. None of the students had to fight, of course, but a lot of you… _heroes _did anyway. No one tried to recruit the Slytherin house – they knew which side we would fight on if we fought at all. So we stayed in the castle with crying first years and frightened school ghosts. Only that wasn't enough for Pansy. She wanted to watch the carnage, so all of the older Slytherins went up to the Astronomy tower to see it all."

"The Astronomy tower…" Justin mumbled.

"Yeah… as ever, Pansy showed the ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we watched it all. We watched the Deatheaters come in and butcher our classmates. We saw the earth turn dark, stained by the unworthy blood of those fools who thought they could make a difference. We witnessed the final act of that pathetic old goat, Albus Dumbledore, saving the life of Dean Thomas at the expense of his own. And then… I don't know what it looked like to you from inside the battle, lying in between the corpses of other fools… but we saw a new life tear through the ranks. We saw Minerva McGonagall and Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom and dozens of others rise up and follow Scarhead into battle. It was unreal… nothing could have prepared us for that sight. I can't say that I saw the turning point, the place where a thin crowd of miserable wizards beat down the assault of the Dark Lord's best soldiers. We missed it, that sad moment, because we were lying under a pile of rubble. Someone's spell had gone astray, and blasted into the astronomy tower, burying my Housemates and I. Gregory lost his right arm. My left lung was pierced. Pansy, Vincent, Blaise… they weren't so lucky. By the time I dug myself out is was over. Down on the field, Hermione Granger was hugging Lord Potter and crying, while I was standing in a pool of red slush that had been Pansy a few minutes before. At that moment, I knew what had happened, knew that I was sentenced to be here, now, throwing my life away against the Deatheaters in a battle we can't hope to win."

Justin stared at him incredulously. "That's it? You joined us because you were convinced we would lose?"

Draco laughed; his voice shaking out in waves of melancholy. "At that moment, I knew I was dead. Pansy, Blaise, and Vincent were good wizards from good families. They had the best blood imaginable, but it wasn't doing them much good soaking through my shoes. And down on the field Hermione Granger, that mudblood, was alive. It could be no more evident that the Dark Lord's agenda was a sham. They had been lying to me my whole life, and I hated them. I knew that the next time I went home, I would come face to face with my master, and that he would see what was in my heart… I had to choose, whether to die at his knees or to die here. I hate most of you, but I will die with my wand in my hand, aimed at my killer, as a man should die."

Over the next few hours, the fire faded and then died. Two children sat in the trench, watching the flames expire, and knowing that they were not far behind it.


End file.
